Golf Pet Peeve #11: Golf Simulators

I have a theory about golf simulators. They are solely designed to sell golf clubs. They make the average Joe Golfer think he’s pounding the ball about 20 yards farther. Clubs sold.

For this golf pet peeve, I’ll take you back to the early days of my blog when I wrote about my experience with a golf simulator at a local golf store. Wanna hear it? Hear it go.

So I’m in the market for a driver.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to demo the Nike Sumo. I pretty much don’t buy anything Nike, so this was quite a compromise—one of which I feel quite convicted about now. But that’s neither here nor there.

These machines lie. (Image: seikatsu/Flickr)

Anyway, so I’m on my lunch break at this Pro Golf store, and I decide to hit a few balls in their indoor golf simulator/video screen/driving range/ thing.

You’ve got understand my frame of reference here: when I quit playing golf ( and I know this is beginning to become a theme on the blog…”back when I was a young man…”) the Pro Golfs of the world had the little side room with the green net. You hit the ball and basically judged by feel how well you hit it.

So now, they’ve got these massive simulators. You swing, the ball flies into a screen, the projector then displays your ball flying through the “air”.

The device tells you how far the ball went, your trajectory, swing speed, ball speed, whether the ball had a hook, slice, fade, or draw. It stores each shot so you can see how your shot patterns develop throughout the session.

Well, here’s my opinion of these fancy little contraptions: crap. Crap, crap, crap. Let me explain. My second shot with said Nike driver was a nice heel job. With my ancient Great Big Bertha, it’s the type of shot that would probably be a low fade, 230 yards out in the fairway. I really mishit the ball.

But with this Pro Golf “simulator” I’m like Ernie Els hitting some kind of power draw 325 yards down the middle of the fairway. The pattern continued. When I hit the ball solid, it estimated my drives anywhere from 280-290; my misses were in the 270 range.

So I take the club out to an actual driving range. I hit the Nike, then my Bertha (which averages 255ish). Zero difference. The Nike actually ballooned on me a good bit, causing me to actually hit the Bertha further in many instances.

It was a stiff shaft, so that wasn’t the issue. Needless to say, I was thoroughly unimpressed. Thankfully, I made the wise decision of taking the club out on the range and not trusting those God-awful simulators.

I’m sure if you bought one for yourself, you could calibrate it to be accurate. But no doubt the issue is this: the golf stores are going to fix the devices so they estimate a good 20-30 yards farther.

Joe Hacker comes in, swings the hot new club, and he’s amazed by how much farther he hits the ball. He’s got “golf club fever” now, and he makes the buy. It’s a screw job on the store’s part.

When I asked the salesman if the simulators were accurate, he responded, “Dead on.” Right. I should have known something was up when I was hitting 190-yard six irons. But it took the experience with the driver for me to figure this out.

Don’t trust these machines. The grass and the air at your local driving range is much more honest.

Like this:

Related

28 Responses to “Golf Pet Peeve #11: Golf Simulators”

Don’t blame the machine. It’s clearly user error, both on the golfer and the retail specialist side. If you had used the simulator properly, it would have been “dead on”, but I suspect that the golf pro you were working with did not know how to use it properly or how to calibrate it. It also depends on the simulator. There are only 2 “very close to reality” simulator companies out there. So absolutely don’t blame the machine. If you are in the right one and you know how to use it, it will give you accurate feedback of your true outdoor shot. You also don’t get feedback from a driving range. No spin rates, no trajectory reading, no ball speed. The good simulators work well.

We played golf on simulators for three years that my buddy, a PGA pro, had set up for league use and playing and instructional purposes. It was a blast here in the frozen north from Nov. to Mar.

Granted, he wasn’t really pushing club sales. The machines seemed to be very accurate when compared to outdoor results.Chipping could be a little funky because the ball had to be on the tee for the light sensors to get a good read. Made it tough to hit down on the ball and see accurate results. Full swings were great though. Slice swings sliced and hook swings hooked. Distances were about what everyone expected.

I agree with the first comment, if the set-up of the simulator was correct, it should have been much more accurate! But then again, maybe they set it up on purpose in order to sell their clubs! Anyway, good luck with the golf game!

I agree that some retailers jack up the distances to sell golf clubs. It’s easy enough to do. However, I thin simulators are excellent for training and practice when set up and calibrated properly. Sorry you had a bad experience, but at retail stores, I always take their results with a grain of salt.

Control over playing factors isn’t the only benefit of at home golf simulators. They are also perfect for recovering from an injury. You can play the amount of time you want, invite friends to play with you and no one will be upset if you take too long completing a hole!

The main advantage of a golf simulator could be the chance to effortlessly play without the tension, green fees, or tee times. Clarity and also realistic look are definitely the factors which make the simulation seem to be genuine and life-like.

Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it
seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You obviously know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence
on just posting videos to your weblog when you could
be giving us something informative to read?

Hello There. I found yiur blog using msn. This is a really well written article.
I will be sure to bookmark iit and reeturn to read more of your useful info.
Thanks for the post. I will certainly return.

When I originаlly сommented I clicke the “Notify me when new comments are added” cheсkbox and nοw each time а commennt is added I get four emails ωith the same comment.
Is there any way уou can remove people from that service?
Thank you!